Block Party Founder Tracy Chou on Fixing Online Harrassment

“Someone’s experience on a platform is much more than the abuse-likelihood score of each piece of content they see. It is affected by every feature and design choice. Explicit product decisions and machine learning algorithms determine what is given distribution and prominence in timelines and recommendation modules. Prompts and nudges like text composers and big buttons are designed to encourage certain behavior – which is not always good, for instance if they end up motivating quickly-fired retorts and thoughtless replies. Channels for private communication are convenient for personal conversations, yet dangerous as a direct line to someone with no observers to intervene against bad behaviour. Abusers and harassers have the space to be endlessly creative in how to threaten, menace and bully.”

Read the full article here. Oh, and while you’re at it, check out Tracy on Twitter as well as her kick-ass tool to block 👏 the 👏 haters 👏 👉 BlockParty